Saturday, January 31, 2009

Google Blogger for Dummies is due to hit bookshops on February 3rd. It's available to pre-order now from Amazon.com (priced at $16.49) and will be available in Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookshops, and also directly from Wiley.

It’s pervasive no doubt; most bloggers do things just like every other blogger out there without evaluating the reason behind their method. As with any new fad, ideas go viral until we soon see every blogger and his buddy boarding the band wagon.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

GasPedal and the blog council have partnered to deliver another BlogWell event (this time in Chicago) focusing on case studies from large companies on the topics of blogging, social media and online community building.

PR firms seem to be in a rush when contacting bloggers. They’re like those people at networking functions who smile too much, hand out hundreds of business cards and sprint away if they think you might not buy their stuff.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Over 100 Blog Partners helped make this the biggest Open Web Awards to date with over 100,000 confirmed nominations and votes so far. Blog partners come from 25 countries and are written in 10 different languages.

Just in the last 2 years we have seen massive uptake in the creation of content by users, but most of it is now outside of the blogosphere. Status Updates on Facebook, Twitter, new levels of photo sharing and geolocation based services and networks are all becoming the centerpiece of attention.What does the future hold for blogging?

When designing a custom theme or deciding on an already-existing theme, bloggers have a lot of factors to consider and there is no shortage of options, particularly for WordPress users. A growing number of blogs are moving away from traditional blog layouts in favor of magazine-style themes; however, the layout and presentation of content has a major impact on visitors and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

The Blogger team have (finally) decided to embrace Twitter as a means of publishing updates for Blogger users. By following the official Blogger feed on Twitter, you can now receive news of status updates, blogs of note, service interruptions and fabulous new features even sooner than before.

Blogger Buster is a resource blog for bloggers, offering hints, hacks, tips and tricks to help enhance your blogging experience. Use the label cloud and search box in the right hand sidebar of you're looking for specific information, or simply browse through my posts instead.

Most bloggers will eventually face the decision of running multiple blogs or focusing on just one. Of course this is a decision that should be made carefully and there is no right or wrong answer, everyone’s situation is unique.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Trackbacks, pingbacks, Google Alerts… There are lots of ways to find out who’s talking about your blog posts. But it’s more difficult to know if you’ve been mentioned on Twitter, where a variety of URL-shortening services disguise the final destination.

Now there’s a way you can tap into those conversations. TweetBacks, by Dan Zarrella, is a service that finds links to your blog that have been posted to Twitter via the most popular URL-shortening services. With just a bit of JavaScript you can include those mentions on your blog post just like trackbacks. Dan even has a WordPress plugin to make it easier.

TweetBacks includes several options, such as including Twitter avatars and excluding TweetBacks from certain users. The service also includes “TweetStats,” so you can display a list of your most Twittered posts.

A lot of people have moved their link blogging to Twitter, which makes it a growing source of traffic for some websites. A service that lets you tap into that community and bring the conversation back to your blog could be very popular.

Whether you own an online business or a blog, you would want to know your position in search engines for specific keywords and also the position of your competitors. This is where Exact Factor, a site that helps you to track your position and your competitors’ for free, comes into play. Read rest of article.

Friday, January 09, 2009

In this featured episode of Science Saturday from Bloggingheads, George Johnson and John Horgan returned with new insight on the controversy provoked by their last appearance, including some negative comments directed toward ScienceBlogger Abbie from ERV.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

A Canadian woman has launched a lawsuit against Google Inc., demanding that the company reveal the identity of the people she says posted offensive statements about her on a blog hosted by the U.S. technology titan.

The Boing Boing network has added a new videogames blog to its roster by the name of Offworld.The new blog gives ample attention to independent games but still covers the heavyweights such as World of Warcraft.

In 2009, Twitter will become much more tightly integrated with the rest of the blog in a variety of ways - watch out for tweetbacks and tweetstats to make their debut, and tweet comments to TwitterRolls to start appearing on blogs. Here are 10 ways Twitter will impact blogs this year.

Technorati indexes 133 million blogs. According to their statistics, about 900,000 blog posts get made every 24 hours. Every topic, every theme, and every subject has been exhaustively covered by hundreds of blogs.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

TrendScope TrendRoll is a user gnerated directory, mapping the best blogs to spot trends.

TrendoScope, the Trends Discovery website, is powered by user content and their decision-making concerning the success of a potential trend. TrendoScope allows all users to present their observations and "cool ideas" as well as promote other ideas on the site in a range of trends related topics. By rating trends with the "will catch on" button displayed alongside every submitted trend, users provide their opinion on the likelihood of the trend to become the next big thing.